The Future of Work: Do You Need New Skills?

The Covid-19 pandemic is accelerating certain trends that were already altering the world of work. Remote work is being embraced by companies around the world, even in sectors not known for adapting to new technologies. Companies that provide services that aid the transition to remote work are thriving, including video conferencing apps like Zoom and communications solutions like Slack.

Millions of people have been furloughed or let go, but those with skills that can be deployed online continue to have an income. Those wanting to future-proof their livelihoods have an obvious choice: if you want to guarantee your employability, you need to learn remote skills.

Tech is Booming

Most remote skills are tech-related. From coding to website design, skills in the tech industry are the future. In fact, the tech sector has proven to be extremely resilient in the face of Covid-19, and the industry is expected to continue thriving in the foreseeable future. 

The tech industry is vast, and the number of tech-related skills out there is staggering. If you are looking to break into a career in tech, these are a few of the sectors in tech with promising outlooks:

Product Design

The field of product design is growing by the day. Just think of the thousands of websites that go live every hour; someone has to design them and ensure that they can be navigated effortlessly. That is the job of the Web Designer.

Generally speaking, there are two types of designers. A user experience (UX) designer focuses on making the website as intuitive and easy to navigate as possible. In short, these professionals’ goal is to craft the best user experience possible. To do that, they conduct research to identify the issues the user faces with a particular product.

The information collected by the UX designer is passed on to the user interface (UI) designer. These professionals are tasked with the overall look of the website, their goal being to create an attractive product. UI designers are in charge of choosing colors, the typeface or where to locate a button, among other tasks.

UX/UI designers earn high salaries. The average salary for a UX/UI designer is almost $90,000 per year. Some jobs—those which require more experience—offer salaries of up to $154,000.

Digital Marketing

Marketing continues to be of utmost importance to enterprises, but how that marketing is done has been completely reinvented in the last few years. This has given rise to a whole new breed of professionals: digital marketers. 

Digital marketers must have a command of the latest trends in social media and serious knowledge of their target group. Video skills are becoming increasingly important, with studies showing that customers relate more with a brand if they can connect it to a face. In addition, SEO and SEM abilities have become nothing short of a necessity to make it in the industry.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not track figures for digital marketers specifically, but the job outlook in the industry sure is promising. The overall employment of marketing managers is expected to grow by 8 percent by 2028, and many of those positions will go to people who have a background in digital marketing.

If you want to know how to learn digital marketing, Career Karma has plenty of materials to help you jumpstart your career.

Information Security Analysis

As companies continue to digitize processes and rely on online systems, the need to protect data against cyber-attacks is skyrocketing. This is the reason the demand for Information Security Analysts is booming. An information security analyst is a cybersecurity engineer charged with protecting a company’s internal networks and systems, deflecting any data breach or other cyber-attack that could put its precious data at risk. An information security analyst identifies potential problems and coordinates a response with the rest of the security team. Their ultimate goal is to ensure a company’s data is protected from unauthorized access, which includes both online and on-premise infrastructure.

Information security analysts enjoy high incomes, with the average salary falling between $76,000 and $119,000 per year. 

Coding Bootcamps

If the world of work is changing, so is the world of education. Breaking into a career in tech no longer requires a four-year university education. An increasing number of tech hopefuls are choosing instead to attend coding bootcamps. These are short, intense courses that allow the learner to acquire the skills they need to get their foot in the door in a couple of months and at a fraction of the cost of traditional education.

Some of the best bootcamps out there include Thinkful, General Assembly and Flatiron. To learn more about these academies and many others, visit the Career Karma website. Career Karma offers advice on starting a career in tech, with thousands of great articles on everything from data science to web development.